A time to reflect - Don’t leave the world’s poor behind

THE breath-taking climax to the US space shuttle Discovery’s first flight since the Columbia disaster in 2003 has answered many of the questions left hanging over the future of NASA.

But far below Eileen Collins, the Irish-American commander of a vehicle at the cutting edge of human progress, harrowing scenes of famine, destitution and abject poverty were unfolding in Niger and neighbouring countries.

As the world watched nervously and then rightly applauded Discovery’s safe landing on its return to Earth, the dramatic events of recent days threw into stark relief the moral dilemma posed by the expenditure of billions of dollars on such projects when millions of people are mired in poverty on the planet.